The whole kangaroo court is founded on a doozy of a Catch-22: The MPAA insists that it has procedures that it applies evenhandedly. But the procedures are secret so nobody can tell what they are. If something is not allowed, it's because it's against the invisible rules.
So, how do you make sense out of the MPAA's decisions? As "This Film" demonstrates, you don't. The Kafkaesque absurdity behind the movie ratings is beyond belief. Matt Stone ("South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut," "Team America: World Police") testifies from experience that studio pictures are treated a lot more kindly than independently financed and distributed ones. Kimberly Peirce ("Boys Don't Cry") and Wayne Kramer and Maria Bello ("The Cooler"), intuit that the raters are uncomfortable with depictions of female sexual pleasure, while Allison Anders ("Grace Of My Heart") suggests that orgasms of any kind are frowned upon (although women's do tend to last longer, and may therefore make the raters more uncomfortable), and that the male body is even more verboten that the female body. And everybody agrees that the MPAA is very liberal when it comes to violence, and conservative when it comes to sex.
We really didn't need to see the detective work (beginning with a shot of the Yellow Pages and a segment in which Dick interviews private detectives) that went into discovering the identities of the raters. And a greater sense of historical perspective would have been welcome. After all, who wants to hear John Waters talk about "A Dirty Shame," of all his movies?
But while "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" may not present the most effective or airtight case against the MPAA, what it does dig up is damning enough. Some will say it's "one-sided" or "unfair," but that's a rather silly thing to say about an indictment of an autocratic system that is patently one-sided and unfair. The MPAA's positions are amply represented in the film, mostly by career demagogue and super-lobbyist Jack Valenti, now retired, who was instrumental in creating and mythologizing the ratings to begin with.
After seeing "This Film Is Not Yet Rated," you may find yourself thinking a government censorship board, of the kind that exists today in parts of Canada or the U.K., isn't such a bad idea. At least somebody would have to be accountable for the decisions they make. Wouldn't they?
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7s7vGnqmempWnwW%2BvzqZmq52mnrK4v46tn6KrXZu2rbmMoqpmpp%2Bperqx02apmqyVmXpzfI9v